There is no giant inside of me, just a couple of lost boys trying to fit in.

Professors preach reason, the earth dips it’s head

Muscular atrophy, I call it a weak neck

We all fade away for a while

Cities under siege

Orange sirens flashing in the distance

The scraping, dragging

We fell into the salt mines

Give all your guns away

Sew clocks into your heart

Burn the piano in our apartment

I’ll be smashing the dishes

And turning up the table

Throw yourself from the window

While I chain myself to the chair

You can bury the dagger before you go

And set fire to my favorite shirts

Pull it through

The outside world

Is wheezing

The back of my eyelids

Are singing

Desolation

All

Night

Long

You can’t hold back winter

Home is a coal mill

bottles are on the car floor

half of your legs are out the car door

winds in the wind

lights sliding by

The open road is like the cold kitchen floor

souls writhing away on the highway

miles away from your front yard

My generation has been tied to the tracks since day one

Small pox, small houses, skyscrapers and guns

We write nursery rhymes to comfort the already dead

With holes in our pockets, thieves in our morals

We climb into their beds

Heads hung

(our legs are so weak)

Necks rung

(we forgot how to stand)

We smile in delight

(Our hands move on their own)

at the sight in the mirror

The noose is tied tight

(I’ve been relieved of command)

By the travesty of being

And the reality charade

With lungs made of copper, out of necessity we pray

To the ghost of Christmas past

And dig our own graves.

We love the taste of dirt.

So there I was, and there he was too, when we hit the sidewalk hard with bare feet crushing callouses against concrete sidewalk squares and dead ants and berries, spinning stories with our fingers from the heavily-oiled sky, the tattooed air (needed on a drunken night with dark-blue ink, but tinted slightly red from where the needle pinched too hard, that’s just Burlington’s blanket) helps us count by threes to waltz down the blocks to save ourselves from our anxieties (because this summertime’s hurting is more sticky than last year’s) waltzing under interrogation street lamps, grinning at the foolishness of it all, and all of the questions of the world turn and swallow us — ink and all— in a cutesy small-city, big-town kind of way; this is just how we were brought up, though my roots are in some top-soil and his wander this city like nobody’s business (he’s a childish sort of Irish boy, but closer to being a “Man;” he can bullshit his way through all sorts of trouble — and just grins his Cheshire grin, laughing at my ignorance under his carrot-top mop-head and stress-relieving cigarette perched above his right ear for when his hands shake too much —not tonight— with shoes dripping over his shoulder in impatience and nonchalance), by way of awkward pauses, smiles, and semicolons we find our way through town on this foolish mission (probably concocted under a funny kind of mindset—it wasn’t my idea) though tonight we are both struck under the influence of foolishness— of a beautiful, barefoot, red-sky, Burlington intoxication—though he’s used to it and I’m not— of both the hour and the shards of glass now carved into my heel, but we hit the grass soft— with purpose and accomplishment— when he says “jump on three” and we race the length of it and it was like painting limes across the tops of my feet and crushing rose petals across both feet’s souls, all under the fluorescent lighting of the Hyundai dealership sign: nighttime ragtime good time of perfectness and perfection under a mood begotten by the stares of two near-strangers as something to cure momentary wanderlust or concern, and then we turned…

Put me in a coffin when I die of old rage 

Burn down my funeral

Make sure the Rabbis are in attendance

They’re preaching Talmud to war zone

Ask the birds what they think of the telephone wires

Don’t be surprised when they say their pissed

They’ll spread their wings and never be seen again

Flood the shopping malls with kool aid and try and notice a difference

Heaven looks like a movie theater, god just sits at the projector eating popcorn

The manufacturers are making life jackets to sell at 5 dollars for peace on the titanic

We’re all going down with the ship, the captains got out while they still could

Maybe you should have seen this coming before you made me all hammers and nails

We’re all asking for forgiveness, and throwing pennies in wishing wells

They all go the same treatment plant, you’re wishes, that all go to the same places

Every dream you ever had has fallen on deaf ears besides yours

They spring from your fingers, grow in your nails

Your knuckles ache with the regrets you have

You stick your hand in the drain, flip the switch.

Ripped from our places,

Stretched over anvils.

Schoolhouse hammers slimmed us down,

Told us not to sing,

Because they saw how we shined.

They made us dull in their rust, our hearts slowing down,

our reach a little less long and the beauty a little harder to find.

They tried to bend us with their heat,

and offers of a future less like the past,

Common grounds and stacks,

Cashing in on the six letter word we all fear the most.

They tried to bend us,

With the safe, and with the just,

no late nights, no sore muscles,

They asked us to just live, and nothing else.

Until we find ourselves too late, asking,

“What happened to my sure fire heart and my stitched up lungs,

the quivering in my hands and the songs our mouths sung through the trees,”

Through the trees, so fast our pasts were like blurs,

I remember,

We used to run,

Until we got,

Picked up one day.

Breezed through the sand down onto to the shores and floated away,

With lead hands strung up so heavy,

But I’ll jump off cliffs like men jumping from burning buildings,

And never ask who’s on fire,

Me, I’ll sit and swing out over oceans because,

maybe then,

we wouldn’t have been stretched like anvils with schoolhouse hammers,

trying to shape us into door hooks for their business coats,

butter for their knives, and motions for their movements.

Maybe these anvils, these picks and axes,

wouldn’t feel so much like a hard place.

Like growing up feels so much like dying.

Like standing still feels so much like sighing.

My eyes have been compared to glass windowpanes,

Of skyscrapers,

Because my conscious needs to be cleaned,

My fists have been compared to coal miners,

Because sometimes I break shit.

Like the backs of old black doormen in Virginia who make me feel so awkward,

Like roofs over our heads in a snowstorm,

Like the kid who’s never left his town,

He watches birds in hopes on day he’ll be able to fly south,

So he can know what it’s like to watch a tree full of monarchs catch fire.

And understand the earth didn’t even flinch.

He settles for less than wings and joins the air force instead,

he tries to drop to his knees but instead he only drops bombs.

At night he prays for thunderstorms and wind complications,

while I’m at home safe and warm praying for the same.

We are stretched out over anvils,

Schoolhouse hammers,

Living in seven letter seasons,

Fighting for four letter reasons,

And waiting for someone to pick us up, and make us right again.

But instead I’ll take this hammer to myself,

Light a fire up in my words,

And set this whole forest ablaze.

Wade out into the high tides of the soul,

Scream out into the distance

Tell god, man, the motherfucking lighting

To bring it.

I’m standing with fire shooting out of my mouth

And daggers in my hands.

While I spit out all that rust,

I gathered in my mouth,

After spending so much time,

Fighting off all these storms.

This is for the takers, 

These bare bones minimums are all we grasped on our way out the door.

Packed our lives away with zippers meant to hold and not break,

Eating one meal at time,

Seeing one way out,

this time.

Holding pens kept away from big cities just far enough so you can’t hear our escape,

These life’s we crash into each other,

just the mere side effect of our departure.

I’ll tear up this whole place if I have to.

Shared with missed connections holding the hands of situation,

Surgically removing one half from another,

These lovers’ lives cut in two.

These threads pulled tight, they will have to wait, break,

or be made stronger,

If they should last the night.

We pack our bags because the everyday pummel didn’t feel right,

And we decided to ask… 

“Are these our lives?”

“Is this really the extent these arms can stretch”

“are these the heights I was meant to climb”

I know I’ll never see the stars but I thought maybe one day I’d like to shine like one,

 Because day to day becomes night to night

and I’d like to be able to have a little bit of light from time to time.

But who am I fooling.

We are running away,

and we know what we want,

we just can’t get it yet, so here is our break,

Leaving ruins behind us.

This is for the leavers.

We wave our hands, spinning light into our palms,

And giving it back to those left high and dry,

Hopefully this will illuminate you for as long as I am gone,

I am not sure when I can come back, and what part of me will write you in letters sent across oceans,

But until then take this,

What’s left of me here?

The tools of my trade,

Here you see they have my marking on them,

The callused hands left dirt from my fingernails,

That you can mix yours with,

maybe,

if you walk my steps for a long enough time,

The dullness in your head might trick you into thinking

I am holding your hand.

Misplaced feeling masquerading as something else

These are not candles we leave to be blown out when the night is up,

but a fire to keep on feeling warmth,

when these shoulders have gone missing, and all your songs just won’t do it.

One day, you’ll come home,

I’ll be washing up out back, and you can shake my bones like you used too,

Wrap my neck like you can,

And let go like you want to,

These are what takers and leaves always find they have to do,

Come back,

Shake the dirt of f the mantel,

Come to stone cold realization,

Where they belong, where they went, and where they left, are not so far apart.

You are killing us,

You tie your noose around your neck everyday,

In a half Windsor.

Worry about your business cards,

The wood they used to make your desk,

The size of you office,

How cold the water in cooler is,

While I am laying silent as the night in cargo train cars,

Avoiding police and hugging the long straight lines of steel,

That runs like veins through this land,

And I’m just trying making my way to a new coast,

You are killing us.

You are walking on the other side, of a brick wall,

Grinding your teeth at the noise that we make

Because it is more honest then the voices that speak to you at night,

where you hide from the self you shower with in the morning.

While the only way I can let the devil out,

Is through a bleeding throat, and a bursting heart,

The syllables of salvation are hard to be heard,

When half the world is alive but silent,

And dashing sterility, and half-life commits miss their mark,

But The Holy and The Cool are such missing men.

You are killing us.

You are sitting in your car, getting mad at freeway,

because the man in front of you hasn’t noticed the light,

While I am standing underneath blackened oil sky clouds,

Trying to find a way to be free.

Trying to catch the rain on my tongue,

so in the morning,

I won’t have to taste the bitterness of fantasies,

The tart sting of unrelenting opportunity,

Unmet,

Unattainable.

My arms,

Outstretched like telephone wires,

Trying to find some redemption in this downpour,

Sometimes I wish I could wash this dirt off my skin,

You are killing us.

You are sitting in front of a TV, trying to numb away the guilt,

You are blinding yourself with beige walls, and an apartment that is so full,

You must have emptied out your insides,

Put them on a check,

And you wrote all the value of yourself off a long time ago.

While thick tar,

And dust of the diamond mines in northern Africa have crusted my eyes,

The tools these child’s hands use cut my fingers,

Singe the tips.

These diamonds that lay so close to your heart,

will stop so many of my brothers in their tracks,

They will find chains around their ankles,

They will find less sand in their hourglass,

They will find out that they will never see another desert,

Never see another ocean,

Never see the urban sprawl,

Never see the monuments to their toil.

They will find, that somewhere along the line, 

Their time lines, skinny and flimsy in the hands of blind men

Fell off the table.

My sisters are crying,  their hearts on fire, their waves are thunder,

You are looking away with closed fists covering your eyes,

Grasping onto the innocence that you never gave us

You buried yourselves in textbooks, and flat screen knight caps

You learned your fathers hard ways,

And how to be quiet about it like your mother.

You will never know her sickness,

and why your father cried at night,

When she would lay there,

Unresponsive in the black,

like the dust bowls and sandstorms,

I have crawled through just to walk two miles for water.

You are killing us.

Imagine what it’s like to have choice ripped from your fingers,

before you could even open your eyes,

Simply because  you were born.

You are scorning and cursing at the world,

For not giving you the things you love,

And so you replace the things it loved about you,

While I am a Japanese student,

Standing like Christ,

Before the oncoming wave saying,

Come wash my sins away,

Open up my chest, fill my lungs, and allow my knees

To bend.

If blessings in the water are redemption,

Then make me a newborn child again,

Free of the marks of this world,

Baptize me in your fury,

And maybe god will know what it’s like to choke on salt water.

You are killing us.

You are counting up casualties like math problems on your desk,

You have a picture of your son and you on your desk,

He is at home, he is warm and he cries when he is cold,

I am a woman,

Standing in the wake of an explosion in Palestine,

There are bus parts scattered and singed, bleeding pavement.

Full grown men standing in a circle,

Weeping out loud,

Their tears do nothing but sting the thousand year old open wounds

I have a picture of my son.

He was angry,

He was hopeless,

And now I carry the burden of knowing,

 I couldn’t have heard him scream fire.

While he tried to shove it down the throats of everyone around him,

For a thirty foot radius.

And you’re a damn liar if you think anyone is listening,

You are killing us.

God is a baby,

Rocking back and forth while we use his stomach as a shooting range.

He is crying.

He is screaming,

But he has never known what to do,

He is reborn in all of us,

we have never known what to do.

You are killing us.

You are listening, but you don’t care, you are reporting, you are compiling us into numbers, charts,

How many dead today,

How many infections,

How much lung cancer,

What are the effects?

How many prison bars,

Can we catch the next ones early,

So maybe we send them to die before we put them in jail,

So we won’t have to house them,

Who’s fighting who,

You are killing us.

But you do not count the tears shed and the injustices met with more,

We are not numbers we are just lost,

You are killing us.

You are standing,

Mouth agape,

Staring at the porn on channel 7, 5, and 3,

you think to yourself, when did my information turn into entertainment,

when did my conscience take vacation.

You are killing us.

I am a southern Nigerian boy siphoning oil,

From a pipeline, the black liquid slipping over my hands.

My father has died, and my mother is sick,

I will never take the gold from this soil,

never drink from these diamond studded cups,

That yield such disregard for the silver in our spines.

You are killing us.

I can see the fires for miles,

Towers that tower and hold up the black,

the sky has not been blue for days,

I can’t see the desert,

I can’t see sun,

Imagine,

A forest on fire the trunks of trees breaking around me their leaves fluttering in the wind, embers of life that have given up,

The sparks are like the earths last spit in the face,

This bravery’s last breath,

This is our eulogy,

The dirges of darkness,

We all wear black, while the world screams in our ears.

And hope,

we have lost it.

I am scraping my name into the rock at my feet,

Clearing away the dirt until my fingers bleed,

just so someone will remember us,

Because it won’t be you.

We have killed it, you have killed us and we all have killed it.

The forest is on fire; the sky has not been blue in days,

The oceans are like my fathers fists,

And on some days I swear the sun is black.

The disapproving eye of god that has shut.

The forests are on fire, the light is going out.

The earth is spinning out of control.

The heart has lost its rhythm.

Our coffins have come up to shake hands with us.

All of your prophecies mean nothing when no one reads them.

Our mouths sprout weeds.

Our rib cages are car accidents.

At the bottom of the ocean.

Our hands can only destroy.

We have shut our eyes.

You are killing us.

We are not yours.

We have fallen off the earth.

The world is not ours.

You are killing us.